So Senator Harry Reid thinks the Federal Income Tax is a voluntary contribution.

This isn’t really surprising, when you think about it. The Left has its own definition of voluntarism. The Left’s vision of society has always looked a lot like a Soviet propaganda movie. The call goes out for the proletariat to make some sacrifice for the common good, and the people happily drop their individual concerns and march off to do whatever job the Politburo says they should do. And if the authorities have to use guns to get some of them to fall in line, well, it’s for their own good, and therefore voluntary in the deepest, truest sense.

Even prisoners in the gulag were officially described as volunteers.

I got a new computer at work recently, and I just updated the screen saver.

I opted to use that “3D Text” saver that displays some words specified by you, in shiny metallic 3-D form, rotating in the dark. I typed in Norwegian words—“Ordet Blev Kjød,” which comes from John 1:14: “The Word became flesh.” I can understand that it might seem questionable to some if I say that this verse is the center of my theology (happily, it’s also the motto of the school I work for), but I think this doctrine—the Incarnation—is kind of the foundation on which all the rest of Christian theology rests. If you don’t get this one right, you’ll probably wander into all kinds of heresies.

I was looking at that phrase, spinning on my screen yesterday, and it just struck me how wonderful it is.

Every human being (as far as I can tell) experiences (at least at some point) transcendent longings. We yearn for a greater meaning, a higher beauty, a purer love than this world can offer.

And yet we generally find ourselves mired in lower things. Our aspiration for meaning turns into just making a living. Our dream of beauty becomes fashion and affluence. Our hope of love becomes either mere sex or one or more disappointing, unsatisfying relationships.

Humans have traditionally dealt with this problem by either denying the spiritual (materialism) or denying the physical (eastern spirituality).

Christianity deals with it by boldly proclaiming that in Christ, the two things become one. In Christ, because of His incarnation and the things He did in His incarnation, we can have our cake and eat it too, so to speak. We can have spiritual meaning in the physical world, and physical satisfaction in spiritual things.

I think that’s really good news.

I think I’ve written about this before, but it’s something I’ve come to believe.

I don’t know if there’s an official, ecclesiastical name for the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. But I call it Bad Saturday.

It doesn’t have a name (or not a well-known one, anyway) because it’s a kind of a nothing. The bad thing happened yesterday. The good thing hasn’t happened yet. It’s the day of disappointment, of shock, of depression. The day when the scattered disciples hole up and try to figure out the safest way out of the province. The day when everything has fallen apart, and you don’t know what’s coming next.

The day when all you’ve got to go on is a promise. And that promise that doesn’t look very promising, in the wake of what happened yesterday.

In other words, it’s the day in which we live most of our lives. True, Easter has happened, but Easter isn’t finished yet. We seem to be in the third act of God’s great drama, and we can’t see the climax from here. So we wait, and we say our lines, and we follow our stage directions, but the Happy Ending is still waiting in the wings, behind a curtain.

We’re trying to get through Bad Saturday as well as we can.

Easter is our hope. It’s a thing that has already happened, and has not yet happened, for us as individuals.

It’s a question of perseverance. Today might be called the Day of Perseverance. Hang on. The Feast comes tomorrow.

The Lord grieved in the garden, as depicted by Robert Walter Weir

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

For this day, a special St. Patrick’s Day because it falls between Palm Sunday and Easter, here is a part of Patrick’s confession (also found here). The real man behind the day is here:

I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a presbyter, of the settlement of Bannaven Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our deserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our presbyters who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.

And there the Lord opened my mind to an awareness of my unbelief, in order that, even so late, I might remember my transgressions and turn with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my insignificance and pitied my youth and ignorance. And he watched over me before I knew him, and before I learned sense or even distinguished between good and evil, and he protected me, and consoled me as a father would his son.

Therefore, indeed, I cannot keep silent, nor would it be proper, so many favours and graces has the Lord deigned to bestow on me in the land of my captivity. For after chastisement from God, and recognizing him, our way to repay him is to exalt him and confess his wonders before every nation under heaven:

For there is no other God, nor ever was before, nor shall be hereafter, but God the Father, unbegotten and without beginning, in whom all things began, whose are all things, as we have been taught; and his son Jesus Christ, who manifestly always existed with the Father, before the beginning of time in the spirit with the Father, indescribably begotten before all things, and all things visible and invisible were made by him. He was made man, conquered death and was received into Heaven, to the Father who gave him all power over every name in Heaven and on Earth and in Hell, so that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and God, in whom we believe. And we look to his imminent coming again, the judge of the living and the dead, who will render to each according to his deeds. And he poured out his Holy Spirit on us in abundance, the gift and pledge of immortality, which makes the believers and the obedient into sons of God and co-heirs of Christ who is revealed, and we worship one God in the Trinity of holy name.

He himself said through the prophet: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me [Psalm 50:15].” And again: “It is right to reveal and publish abroad the works of God.”

I am imperfect in many things, nevertheless I want my brethren and kinsfolk to know my nature so that they may be able to perceive my soul’s desire.

Read on

I saw in the night visions,

and behold, with the clouds of heaven

there came one like a son of man,

and he came to the Ancient of Days

and was presented before him.

And to him was given dominion

and glory and a kingdom,

that all peoples, nations, and languages

should serve him;

his dominion is an everlasting dominion,

which shall not pass away,

and his kingdom one

that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14 ESV)

We celebrate the Lord’s coming with His kingdom this Easter, and isn’t it remarkable how his triumphful entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was nothing like the description above. While on earth, Jesus was more humble than we tend to be, but in the spiritual background, he was the one would be praised by all creation, even the rocks. “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Luke 19:38 ESV).

His kingdom is here now (Luke 17:20-21), like a pitch of leaven worked throughout the dough, and it will not pass away. So what earthly agenda should we put aside in humility? What preceive right should we forfeit in deference to the Lord’s authority? How could we have the mind of Christ knowing His kingdom is near?

Man in himself had ever lack’d the means

Of satisfaction, for he could not stoop

Obeying, in humility so low,

As high, he, disobeying, thought to soar:

And, for this reason, he had vainly tried,

Out of his own sufficiency to pay

The rigid satisfaction. Then behoved

That God should by His own ways lead him back

Unto the life, from whence he fell, restored;

By both His ways, I mean, or one alone.

But since the deed is ever prized the more,

The more the doer’s good intent appears;

Goodness celestial, whose broad signature

Is on the universe, of all its ways

To raise ye up, was fain to leave out none.

Nor aught so vast or so magnificent,

Either for Him who gave or who received,

Between the last night and the primal day,

Was or can be. For God more bounty show’d,

Giving Himself to make man capable

Of his return to life, than had the terms

Been mere and unconditional release.

And for His justice, every method else

Were all too scant, had not the Son of God

Humbled Himself to put on mortal flesh. (from Dante’s Paradise)

James Lileks at www.buzz.mn says they’re having a try-out for the game show, Jeopardy at the Mall of America tonight.

Ah well. If God had intended me to go to the try-out, He wouldn’t have scheduled a Viking Age Society meeting for tonight.

My subject, in lieu of phrasing my answer in the form of a question, is the parables of Jesus.

Most Christians think they know all about the parables. It’s my opinion that most of what we think we know is… not exactly mistaken. But inadequate.

I grew up (and I don’t think I’m alone) with the idea that the parables were essentially allegory. You go to them with the idea of figuring out what this or that symbolizes, and then you have the meaning.

But have you noticed that that approach doesn’t actually work very well when you go to the text?

It works fine for some of the parables. The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:3-9) is a classic of this form. In fact, the disciples ask Jesus what it means, and He gives an allegorical interpretation. The seed stands for something, and the various kinds of ground on which it falls stand for various kinds of people.

And yet… what does that interpretation tell us? That some people accept the gospel, and some people don’t. Hardly news to anybody who’s ever tried to share his faith.

So it seems to me that Jesus’ interpretation wasn’t meant to be exhaustive. I think He meant us to meditate on the story and read the deeper implications—the fact that people who want to spread the gospel have to be prepared to see most of their work appear to be wasted, holding onto faith that the portion that falls on the “good soil” will bring a return that makes up for the disappointment of the others. In other words, courage and persistence and optimism are the point, as any good salesman could tell you.

Some parables seem to be plain narrative, with no symbolism involved. Take the parable of the Rich Man with the storehouses (Luke 12:16-21). I look in vain here for any symbolism or allegory. The rich man represents a rich man. He’s accumulated so much grain (which symbolizes grain) that he’s making plans to tear down his old storehouses (which I interpret for you to mean storehouses) and build new ones to hold it all. He doesn’t know that he’s about to die, and then all his wealth will do him no good. This isn’t allegory. It’s a cautionary tale. Jesus says, “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God” (verse 21). We miss the point of this story, I think, when we look for symbolism when we ought to be taking it literally.

And then there are the “difficult parables.” There’s the parable of the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1-8). How are we to take a story where Jesus asks us to think of God as being like an unjust judge? (No wonder the Sanhedrin considered Him a blasphemer!). Or the parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1-13). Here Jesus seems to be holding up an embezzler as an example for His disciples. What’s with that?

This is again a problem of looking for allegory where something else is intended. These two stories aren’t allegories. They’re… I don’t know what to call them. There’s probably a literary term. They’re stories intended to shock, to twist paradigms, to deliver a narrative kick to our pants. Jesus is simply telling fantastic, shocking (and somewhat comic) stories to get our attention. He doesn’t want us to take the Unjust Judge or the Unjust Steward as reliable symbols or role models. He just wants us to look at the things we do from a different perspective. These stories are like the two-by-four with which the farmer in the old joke smacks his mule, just “to get its attention.”

My point in all this is to say that the parables, considered merely as a group of stories, are highly remarkable, and far more textured and complex than we usually think.

It seems to me that even someone who didn’t believe the Christian religion would have to stop a moment in puzzlement if he encountered these stories for the first time, and was informed that they came from an obscure, First Century Jewish peasant. I think he’d say, “This must have been some peasant.”

Today’s Thinklings Quote of the Day lines up with this video post from yesterday. The quote is from A. W. Tozer: “The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are not worthy of Him.” In the post, a pastor reveals his struggle with the challenge Jesus lays before us. He said that a year or two ago he was struggling with his role as a pastor and his intimacy with the Lord. He turned to his wife and said, “If Jesus had a church in Simi Valley, I betcha mine would be bigger.” Because he didn’t challenge his congregation like the Lord challenges us.